Two suspected militants have been killed in an exchange of fire with Egyptian police in a province outside the capital Cairo.

Security officials said the militants were killed as police raided a hideout in the province of Qaliubya on Sunday.

The slain militants belonged to an outlawed outfit suspected of being behind the killing of a policeman in July.

Militants have stepped up attacks in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula and other parts of the country.

Late Saturday, two policemen were killed and six others injured after their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in the town of el-Arish in Sinai Peninsula. The policemen's death brought to 10 the total number of security personnel killed in separate attacks in el-Arish and the border town of Rafah over the course of the past three days.

The Egyptian military has been struggling to contain an insurgency by militants in northern Sinai.

The deadly attacks are usually carried out by Velayat Sinai, a local affiliate of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to Daesh in 2014.

The Velayat Sinai terrorist group had mainly attacked security forces in the region since its emergence in 2013. The terrorists have so far killed hundreds of members of Egyptian security forces.

Over the past year, Egypt has been suffering from a spike in terrorist attacks targeting civilians in the mainland.

Velayat Sinai later expanded the assaults to target members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian community as well as foreigners visiting the country. That has prompted the government to impose a state of emergency and widen a controversial crackdown, which critics say has mostly targeted dissidents.